Hummingwolf at Home

Yesterday evening I discovered rather to my dismay that we had mouse droppings in the kitchen. Wasn't sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing that I noticed this after eating supper.

Since we had a bunch of snap traps left over from the last mouse invasion (in 2011? the year of this earthquake), I baited and set half a dozen of them in and around the kitchen. One mouse got caught. There is never just one mouse.

My landlord commented on the fact that the trap with the mousie looked like it had no bait on it--seemed completely clean, aside from a tuft of fur. I assured him that I had, in fact, put a dab of peanut butter on every trap that I'd set out. Noticed later that three other traps also looked completely clean. Well, if local mousies need to eat more food before they're heavy enough to trigger a trap, then I guess they'll get more food. There are now eight traps downstairs, each with its share of peanut butter. Here's hoping they get at least one more mouse (there is never just one mouse) so I can go on an exhaustive cleaning spree like I really, really want to right now.

Since today's an unseasonably cold day, I am wearing one of my warmer sweatshirts. I just realized that the one I chose this morning is decorated with a cute design of flowers, falling leaves, and mice.

{This entry is being posted mostly so I can confirm to myself that I still know how. More updates eventually (maybe even interesting ones!), I hope.}

So I had this dream that the world was predicted to end within a few hours. But then the supposed time of the end came--and passed--and I was relieved even though I hadn't quite believed the prediction in the first place, and other people were uncertain because they had believed and weren't convinced that their lives on Earth were not coming to an end.

The earthquake that woke me up from the dream is currently thought to be a 3.6.

Received today from the Social Security Administration, Office of Disability Adjudication and Review:
NOTICE OF DECISION -- FULLY FAVORABLE

Enclosed is the Administrative Law Judge's decision on your claim. This notice gives you information about what you can do if you disagree with the decision.

Heh. No, I don't think I disagree with this one, thanks.

Another office of the Social Security Administration will process the decision and will send you a notice about your benefits....

You should hear something about this decision within 60 days. If you do not, contact your local Social Security office.

So now I get to wait some more. But this time, it's a much happier wait!

So, on V-Day I celebrated by going to the ER because I'd been
coughing up blood.

Not sure what I celebrated today, but went to the ER because my
vision had become majorly distorted on the right side of the
visual field in both eyes and I figured that can't be a good
thing.

I should note that my vision is normally disturbed anyway, and often more so when I'm close to passing out. But I wasn't feeling faint, the problem did not go away when I lay down, and it's never been something which suddenly affected my field of view on just one side--of each eye. That was just odd. Well, odd and disturbing. It was kinda like someone playing with the controls on an old TV set so that the picture went zigzagged, but somehow affecting only part of the screen. My vision's mostly back to (what passes for my) normal now, but for a while there it was very... well, odd.

They asked me questions, didn't do a whole lot that i noticed
but I was kind of out of it after being sleep-depped for so long
because of the coughing. My oxygen levels were excellent, my blood pressure was way above my normal (146/70 is only a bit above normal people's normal, but my normal is more like 90 or 100/60), pulse 122, temp 98.6, and I'm guessing the flu swab was negative since they never mentioned it again. I was advised to make appointment with ophthalmalogist whose name they put on the discharge papers. Still have bronchitis, but they told me I'm already taking all the things they'd advise me to take for it and should go back to my regular doctor. And since I do not have Medicaid anymore, I can't afford any of this.

Oh, there was a fun moment when someone brought in a computer to check me in and discovered that I was already in the system, listed with the address and phone number I grew up with. "Oh! This must be the hospital where I had the laparoscopy!" Heh.

Also learned from one of the nurses about a guy in a wheelchair who needs someone else to take care of his hygiene and assorted other ordinary tasks of daily living and she still can't get him on medical assistance. To be fair to the system, he may be ineligible because he has too much in assets. She didn't volunteer that much information and I thought it too impolitic to ask. Maybe I should feel lucky that I ever got Medicaid at all, but the fact that other people need it & can't get it doesn't change the fact that I need it too.

I wish somebody could take a wet/dry vacuum to my lungs and suck all the mucus out. Also, it'd be nice if somebody would figure out what distorted my vision & make the problem go away.

I think I'd be freaking out if I weren't too tired to work up that much emotion.

In Donald A. Norman's book Emotional Design, there's some discussion of why human designers might want to create intelligent machines with something like human emotion.

The component failure should be detected at the visceral level and used to trigger an alert: in essence, the system would become "anxious." The result of this increased anxiety should be to cause the machine to act more conservatively, perhaps slowing down or postponing non-critical jobs. In other words, why shouldn't machines behave like people who have become anxious? They would be cautious even while attempting to remove the cause of anxiety. With people, behavior becomes more focused until the cause and an appropriate response are determined. Whatever the response for machine systems, some change in normal behavior is required.

Animals and humans have developed sophisticated mechanisms for surviving in an unpredictable, dynamic world, coupling the appraisals and evaluations of affect to methods for modulating the overall system. The result is increased robustness and error tolerance. Our artificial systems would do well to learn from their example.

Yesterday afternoon I went to see a psychiatrist, in part because my rheumatologist suggested a newish drug which he thought Medicaid would be more likely to pay for if it was prescribed by a psychiatrist. The new doctor did write a prescription for the rheumy's recommended drug, as well as a new prescription for Ritalin (which I've taken off & on for somewhere between eight years and a decade). After hearing a bit about my life as it is now, he also tried to convince me to take several more drugs, based on the fact that I'm clearly anxious and not sleeping all that well. The man was rather insistent.

During the appointment there was an uncomfortable argument going on in my mind as I tried to decide whether I should tell him that maybe the best treatment for the anxiety of someone who's worried about ending up homeless within a very short time period would be to figure out how to help that person find a home

or tell him that he really needs to change the medication for his own ADHD because he was acting very much like a ferret on crack.

The more reasonable part of my brain won, and I did tell him that I'd rather not take a bunch of new drugs when I've got an anxiety-provoking situation to deal with. He wasn't convinced. I guess there's just so much you can say to a crack-addled ferret.

A friend thought last night that I was pretty anti-drug. I'm not against drugs. I do take Ritalin and am grateful for the help it gives me in dealing with the cognitive problems that go along with fibromyalgia. What I am against is a culture where a person can say "Hi, I'm very upset right now because I'm afraid I'm going to end up on the streets and I need to find a place to live quickly and I don't know where to turn," a doctor can say "Here, take this pill to wipe your anxiety away," and the doctor's response is considered a helpful one. Of course I don't expect a doctor to help me find a place to live. But I do think they should recognize that not every emotion is a disease in need of a cure.

I've got plans to do two things later today and I've decided I'll be happy if I manage to do both.

Thing One: Go to the lawyer's office to sign forms and discuss my options. Yep, did that. My lawyer's opinion at this point is that giving up on this appeal and reapplying immediately may be a good choice--he thinks that I'm more likely to get a quick decision that way, as well as more likely to get a favorable decision, because it's harder to get a judge's ruling overturned at this stage than it is to get a brand-new favorable decision now that I have some idea of how the process works. The BIG disadvantage to filing a new application would be that I would have no chance of getting back payments, though as the lawyer said, getting any money at all as soon as possible may be more important than going through a long wait to maybe get the additional couple years' worth of payments.

My decision today: Go through all the old medical records I have here but did not submit because the lawyer didn't think I'd need to, get them to the lawyer, and find out if he thinks there's something in there that could significantly boost my chances of winning the appeal.

You know, I probably made a mistake when I said earlier today that I'd be happy if I managed to do both of my two things. But "happy" is what I said, so here's what I say now: I'll pretend that this rictus is a smile and you can pretend that you're fooled by the act. Deal?


Thing Two: Go grocery shopping. Went to the Safeway near my lawyer's office and I must say that their produce department is much nicer than the produce department at my local store. I saw Santa Claus! Well, I saw a bunch of Santa Claus melons on sale. Anyway, wore myself out carrying fresh fruit to the Metro station, but it should be worth it.

Doing those two things means I'm too tired to sit up much longer, so I'll go collapse in bed now. (I do so wish that judge could travel with me in this body for a day or two.) Now tell me how cheerful I look.

today may be the first time I've ever told someone what I had to do and avoid doing in order to make it to an appointment with them. In the past, I've tended to focus on the strictly work-related questions they ask--can I do X activity for Y amount of time? if not, why not? Today I finally remembered that all my preparations for the daily tasks are relevant too. I wish I'd had sense enough to do that before.

So anyway, had the Social Security hearing today. My lawyer seemed pleased with what I had to say and the way in which I said it. I know he was pleased with the information my doctor had given to him. The vocational expert in the room agreed that a claimant who has the problems which my doctor says I have will be unable to work.

Oh, and here's something I found out this week: In order for my claim to be approved, they have to find me unable to work full-time. This makes me wonder what the previous decision-makers were smoking thinking when they decided against me in the past. Even when I stubbornly insisted that I would be able to find and keep a part-time job, I wasn't delusional enough to think I could work full time.

The judge kept a poker face and let the lawyer ask the questions, so there's no way of knowing what he was thinking. It basically comes down to whether he believes me and my doctor, or decides that he believes the idiot fine medical professional SS sent me to earlier in the process who didn't know an ass from a handsaw seemed somewhat unfamiliar with the practice of modern medicine.

Got home sometime around 11:30, spent the last few hours collapsed in bed. I managed to get a decent nap in this afternoon in spite of some nasty hip & leg pain. Here's hoping all the effort today was worthwhile.

Thanks to everyone for prayers and good wishes. Have a good day, all!

I kept meaning to write a detailed post about life in the path of Hurricane Tropical Storm Isabel, but nah. Here instead is a collection of mostly-unpolished notes I scribbled down while the power was out.


Thursday:

The storm feels amazing. All day long I had to keep going to a doorway, standing and breathing in the air, feeling the wind, seeing the sky. No big crashes of thunder and lightning, just wind humming along the land, along the skin, along the spine. A housemate's friend who lives on campus was told that he had to go down to the basement, but he decided he & the housemate had to go to a bar instead. I can understand the urge. In between trips half-in, half-outside, watched storm progress on TV. Isabel down to Level 2 Hurricane, then Level 1? DC's mayor on television said you almost have to feel sorry for Isabel, she's been downgraded so much. Parts of the area were passed over by the bands of the storm so they're barely touched. More of the area was hit by flooding (not a problem in our house on a hill), winds, power outages. The news at one point said that half of all people in Virginia were without electricity. Thought we might make it through the night without becoming a statistic, but at ten before midnight, the transformer hummed its last.

Got out my flashlight with its freshly installed batteries, helped a housemate find a big candle to light. Went to back door to look out at the darkened woods. Lights off to the right--just a neighbor with a flashlight, looking around. Lights off to the left--whoa. Um. Okay, it's too wet for anything to catch fire, right? So those sparks and puffs and fireballs shouldn't worry me, right? So said half of my brain. The other half said "Fire! Near my home! Fire! Near my home!" So finally called 911 and explained relatively calmly that the power line was trying to set the trees on fire. Fire truck came a few minutes later, and the nice young fireman agreed with the calm half of my brain, told me it was nothing to worry about, it was too wet for anything to catch fire for long, and as long as the lines were still strung up all they'd do was call the power company and report the problem. That night, he said, they'd gotten 15 similar calls from throughout our suburb.

Standing on the back balcony watching sparks fly like July the fourth, it didn't matter to me that anything in the yard would be too wet to catch fire. When I saw in one place on the ground sparks that would not burn out, I had to go down to see. I arrived at the spot, saw a spark, stomped on it. The spark still glowed. Turning on the flashlight, I discovered that I'd just killed an innocent glowing bug.
( More babbling inside. )

Even if you didn't know something was coming, you'd know something was coming. The air is singing with it. And of course everyone does know something is coming--all the schools are closed, government offices are closed, whole families are out walking their dogs before the storm hits while other folks are simply out in their yards, picking up everything that might remotely possibly be dangerous in a high wind.

Public transportation service in the area has been suspended. Down in Virginia Beach, people who have chosen to ride out the storm are being asked to write their names on their arms in permanent ink so they can be identified later. It won't be nearly that bad here, inland a bit and on higher ground. Most of the worries revolve around the likelihood of downed trees and long power outages, though downhill there are still puddles from the last rains a few days ago and there will be flooding whether anyone asked for it or not.

It's a beautiful day. I'm going for a walk.

Today's Main Events: Nothing exciting, really. There was a housemate interview, after which I told the landlord that my vote is no, don't rent a room to this man. He didn't seem like a bad guy from what I could tell; my instincts simply told me that this was someone who would never fit in this house, no matter who else lived here. Since I rarely object to people interviewed, the landlord's likely to accept my instant reaction this time, especially since the interviewee was much older than the college students he normally rents to anyway.

The other big event was a trip to the grocery store. Yes, I have no life.

Miles Walked Today: About three.

Big Time-Sink of the Day: Playing with a POV-Ray scene file of a fractal landscape.

Last Meal Eaten: Catfish and onions fried in olive oil, seasoned with salt and red pepper flakes; fresh, raw cabbage (both green and red); macadamia nuts; rather a lot of fresh cherries (on sale! whee!). Oh, and a brownie.

Sensory Pleasure of the Day: Walking in a light rain past a magnolia tree.

Now Wearing: Shortish, white cotton nightgown with the little old lady from Shoebox Greetings in a bathrobe brushing her teeth and saying, "Who needs a man when you've got glamour?"

Current Energy Level: Low. Not very low, just low.

Current Pain Level: Moderate.

Do you know why you are here?
Here, sign this form and write today's date.
I won't tell you the date, that is part of my test.
You just gave the wrong answer.

So, tell me about your childhood.
How did you feel when your mother died?
When did your hair turn grey?
Have you ever colored it? Why or why not?
Why no makeup? Don't you use it?
What did you study in college? How long did you go?
What jobs have you had? Ah. And relationships? Oh.
Before you got sick, you'd read about your disease, yes? How many symptoms had you heard of before you got them? Oh? You got sick though you never heard of it before?
Are you sure?
Hmm. Maybe--
I'll give you three words: Door, green, Chicago.
Remember them and say them back to me.
What drugs do you take? Do you drink? Do you smoke? Do you love? Do you hurt? Do you eat enough?
Are you in pain now? How much? On a scale of one to ten--
Sit on that chair, maybe it will hurt you less.
What do you watch on TV? Do you ever watch the news?
Do you know who's our president?
Who's secretary of state?
Who was our last president? And the one before that?
Do you ever think about killing yourself?
And how serious were these thoughts? What did you do?
Are you a danger to yourself now? How can you be sure?
Do you get along with people? Do you talk to them often? Do you think they talk about you?
Did you ever get tested for--
or for--
or--
What were the words I gave you? Door, green, Chicago, good.
I think I've seen enough.

I think you tend to minimize your depression.
You're in more pain than you say you are.
Yes, you're sick and need some more tests--
But you could still be much happier, I think.
This drug might help, and this or this--if you find a way to get them.
I don't make the decisions, but I make a recommendation.
I hope they decide in your favor.

Finally managed to get my card for food stamps and cash benefits today. In order to get the card, I first had to receive training at one of social services' scheduled class times. The trainer was about a quarter-hour late herself, giving me plenty of time to wander around the waiting area, looking at pamphlets about other services available to qualified poor people or tracts titled "¡LO QUE TODOS NECESITAN ES AMOR!" which of course got my tired brain wondering what the Beatles' song "All You Need Is Love" would sound like in a Spanish translation, although my brain refuses to recall quite enough of my years of Spanish classes for me to get very far.

In any event, the trainer finally came out and got the class herded into the training room, which wasn't terribly difficult as the class consisted of me, myself, and I. The training itself was a terribly complicated affair consisting of... okay, not complicated at all, as all I had to do was watch an old slightly worn-out video explaining skills such as how to select a PIN (also known as "your secret code"), these invaluable skills being demonstrated by absurdly cheerful actors of varying ethnicities.

After putting my PIN-selecting skills to use in the office and finding out how much of each kind of benefit I have in my accounts, I wandered along some of the local major roads trying to remember just where to find the one bank listed which didn't charge ATM fees for withdrawing the cash benefits. As it turns out, though I walked quite a bit and noticeably hastened the day when the cash benefits will be required to purchase new shoes, I didn't go to the intersection where said bank is actually located. Oh phoo.

So I came home and collapsed. The landlord is understandably thrilled that, even though I won't be able to pay him all the rent I owe, at least I'll be able to pay something now. As for me, I still won't quite believe I've got these benefits until I've actually used them to purchase something--and even then, I'm going to be afraid they'll take them away unless I get some other form filled out. There have been too many obstacles put in my way for me to breathe easily now. Give me a month or so to absorb it, see if that works. In the meantime, anybody else looking forward to next week's Angel?

So, what happened this three-day weekend? As daisydumont has pointed out, it snowed.

Yesterday afternoon, I shoveled a path from the front door to the street (or where I thought the street probably was--after all the recent snowfalls, it was hard to tell). It was still snowing.

Last night, the landlord and his wife reshoveled the path as well as shoveling the sidewalk in front of the house and a path to the basement door. It was still snowing.

It stopped snowing around noon today. Everything needed to be shoveled again, so I bundled myself up and began the work. After I'd cleared away just enough snow to discern where the three steps leading from the front porch to the front sidewalk were, my body told me in a matter-of-fact voice that I was gonna drop that shovel and go back inside. So I did.

Yep, we're all snowed in here. It's right cozy, it is.

(Yes, I do have healthy young housemates who could've done some shoveling if they were so inclined. Why do you ask?)

Now I'm going to have some nice warm burritos and hot chocolate. Then I'm going to collapse. Good night, everyone!